Pakistani prisoner attacked in India

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SRINAGAR, India — A Pakistani prisoner in India was in a coma Friday after being beaten by another inmate, officials said, a day after a convicted Indian spy died after being bludgeoned with a brick by fellow inmates at a Pakistani prison.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry called the Kashmir jail attack an obvious retaliation for the killing of the Indian prisoner. Indian officials said they would investigate the attack and had issued an advisory to strengthen security for Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails.

K. Rajendra, the director general of prisons in Indian-held Kashmir, said the prisoner, Sanaullah Ranjay, had slipped into a coma and would be sent by air ambulance to a bigger hospital in the city of Chandigarh in the nearby state of Punjab.

Ranjay was imprisoned in 1999 and was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for being a Pakistani militant operating in Indian Kashmir.

The attacker was identified as Vinod Kumar, a court-martialed Indian soldier who is also serving a life term for murder.

Two jail officials have been suspended from their jobs, Kumar said.

Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said an investigation has been ordered into the attack.

The dead Indian prisoner, Sarabjit Singh, had been held in a prison in Lahore, Pakistan, for more than 20 years. He was arrested in 1990 after bombings killed 14 people in Lahore and Faisalabad.

Indian officials said Singh’s death had hurt relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors, which have fought three major wars since they achieved independence from Britain in 1947.